goutal@dec-parrot.UUCP (01/20/86)
RDC's ("Budd Cars") are still in common use on the MBTA, the Boston-area
commuter rail system, and they have reversible seats for the same reason
that someone else mentioned -- saves turning them around.
This is especially important when one end of the line is a place like
Rockport, with no room for a wye.
One of the charms of commuting by rail for me (by RDC, anyway) was that
inevitably at least one seat in each section could reverse, so somewhere
in the car was a pair of facing bench seats. On the homeward run, such
a configuration was always commandeered by a foursome of bridge or poker
or whatever, playing on the briefcases on their knees! Try doing that
in your car! (On second thot, don't...)
I'm pretty sure the clerestory coaches used by the Bay Colony RR also
has those same reversible bench seats. (BCRR started out as an excursion
run during the summer tourist season on Cape Cod. It now supports daily,
year-round commuter service from Cape Cod to an outlying subway station.)
I'm another of those who doesn't care particularly which way I'm riding
on a train, although sideways as on some subways and the Chicago double
deckers verges on awful. I might not like it in an airplane, though.
Hard to say.
-- Kenn Goutal (...decwrl!dec-parrot!goutal ?)cb@hlwpc.UUCP (Carl Blesch) (01/24/86)
My wife used to commute on the Chicago and North Western into
Chicago. The old bi-level coaches had reversible ("flippable")
seats. The new RTA stainless steel coaches, however, had the
seats permanently facing one way in one half of the coach, and
the other way in the other half. When she rode on a new trainset,
she'd make a bee-line to the "correct" (i.e. forward-facing) half
of the coach. By the next stop, the forward-facing halves were
full. I guess the permanent seats save maintenance costs --
I'm sure bolts fall out or wiggle loose in the old flipping seat backs.
Carl Blesch